I’m always looking for some new friends, some new faces that I have promised to come, and I keep looking each day, wondering if you’re here.
God said of David, “The man after My heart, who will fulfil all My will in his generation.” The Lord says of David, “He is a man after My heart, whom I have found. I have raised him up,” or, “I have positioned him.” The Lord says, “David, a man after Mine own heart, whom I have not only raised up, but I have anointed with holy oil.”
I think it is possible, from what we have said thus far, to cast David into a position where it would seem that he has grown up into the position. He is now anointed as a lovely olive tree, and he is pretty much all right.
Well, this morning we are not going to contrast him with Saul, but we are going to see the difference between David and the greater David. In that light, David falls short. However wonderful a representation and shadow he is, he is a dim shadow.
I must remind you: I like to picture David in the very best and highest light, always the ideal. Always see him as the fruitful one, sensing the olive tree and the anointing within. But we must see David in two different aspects this morning. First of all, we are going to see failure, because he did not know how to cooperate with, or enjoy the reality of, this inward anointing. Then we are going to see David in effectiveness—God accomplishing what He will.
Before we turn to the particular incident we are to use, I would like to lay some background. You will have to bear with me for a while, because I want to get some natural laws before us.
I am more and more convinced that too many of God’s children do not grasp spiritual things because they fail to realize that the spiritual is built on the foundation of the natural: first that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. It takes an unveiling of some of these natural laws. What I am going to share for a little bit is going to seem quite natural, but I trust it will take on some meaning in a little while.
I wonder if you have considered what is really necessary before something can be efficient. We say, “That machine is very efficient.” We say people are effective. What is the controlling or governing law behind it?
You said it would do that, and it did. First, let us say, “effective.” All right, that is off—or a hard one. Effective or efficient: what is the controlling thing behind being efficient?
In the natural, efficiency basically flows out of two things. You fellows who are mechanics, who know how a car operates, know that the flywheel, when you are going to get the thing running efficiently, must be marked. As you used to do on the old Model Ts—and I suppose you still do it—when you are going to bring it into efficient running, get a mark on the flywheel. When it is at the right place at the right time, we say it is efficient. Right?
This is a natural law. That which is in the right place, at the right time—the right placing and the right timing—brings about, in the realm of the inanimate at least, efficiency. That is true in the realm of life; it is true in effectiveness also.
Oh, how often through the years have I observed when the anointing of the Lord was upon a servant. God was speaking through him. He may have come into a situation totally unaware of the problems, the needs, or the circumstances. Everyone sits there as the Lord speaks, and all they can say is, “Here is a man in the right place at the right time.” How fitting a word, a word in season. How effective it was.
I am tempted—yet it would be improper, I suppose—to go back through the years to some of the times when I stumbled into effectiveness. That is about all I can say. Totally ignorant of the needs in a life, I have had people come up almost fighting mad and say, “Young man, I know the pastor told you all about me. Nobody could unveil or expose, in such intricate detail, all the things I have done in the last couple of weeks unless somebody told you. Who are you?”
In the realm of machines, in the realm of the natural, there is efficiency and effectiveness. But it flows out of being in the right place at the right time. Well, I hear someone say, “I agree. That is very simple. How do you get in the right place at the right time?”
How do you get in the right place at the right time? Placing and timing grow out of order. It is true in the natural, and there is a divine order that can never be bypassed or overlooked. It is absolutely essential.
Somebody says, “Well, how do you get in order?” Order flows out of something that we must learn to reckon with or consider. I will just put it down, and we will let it unfold as we go along: order grows out of priority.
Where there is proper priority, there is due recognition of what priority means, or there will follow order. There are variations; we could call this sequence. You can put a bunch of matchsticks in order from the biggest to the smallest. That is an order, is it not? Whatever the order might be, the sequence follows. Each thing is in its right place.
It is very interesting: when you get hold of some of this that functions plainly in the natural order of things, then you begin to see how God has so constituted things that they follow this natural law, but in a spiritual way. We will get to that.
Have you followed me that far? Does it mean anything? Well, you have been in some homes, maybe, and someone has said, “Oh, the disorder!” I sure know a lot about some of these laws, but I tell you, getting them to really operate is another thing.
Especially if you look at my tools. I know absolutely that if you take time to put the tool right back in its spot, then the next time you can save so much time because you do not have to look through this drawer, or through that spot, or go to the car, the truck, the trunk of the car, or some other place. You were saving time, but you did not save time. A thing is out of its place, and so forth. No order.
Of course, the priority of the moment seems to be, “Well, I am through with the job. The tool can just fall. Let me see, where was I working last?” No efficiency. No effectiveness.
Well, come around and I can tell you all about it. Then I want you to pray for me, because I do not know how to be a little more orderly in it. I have a real desire. I have a deep admiration for some of my friends who are so utterly meticulous.
I walk into their shop and see the most organized, ordered, arranged things. I do whisper under my breath that it is all order; they do not get much done because they spend all their time getting things in order. So maybe I am only consoling myself. Do I have any friends?
It is a wonderful thing to be organized. I have sat down on a few occasions with men and women, especially businessmen, and tried to help them see this thing: how priority brings about order.
I have thought this myself as we face a day, and I think it is very helpful. You can do it in your mind or on a piece of paper. Start with the number-one thing that has priority, all the way down until you have the ten things that you feel need to be accomplished that day. Put the one at the top that is to have high, or top, priority.
Now, if you go by your feelings and sort of drift along through the day, you pick the thing that you like to do. You follow me? You pick the thing out of your emotion, out of your feeling: “Oh, I have been wanting to read this book for a long time. I will just read this.” Whatever it is, you start and move on a totally different basis.
Your priorities, and the order that you get through the day, may not be the kind of order that you need, because there is something wrong with priority. Someone says—and I do not want to jump ahead now—“How do you find priority? How is it determined? The thing I started out with was the top of my list today. I was so sure it was number one.”
Have you ever wasted the whole day? Have you ever been off on a tangent, going someplace only to waste hours? Oh, how ineffective—and how there is an awful emptiness within the life.
There is something that I believe God would have us discover as we get attuned, begin to operate with Him, and learn how to cooperate with the anointing. I am not off the scene. It may seem like it.
It is possible for folks to have the anointing, or to sense the anointing, yet not know how to cooperate with the anointing. We have been saying—and I believe it will bear out—that in the anointing of the Lord there are some things like the strands of a rope, absolutely inseparable.
The will and purpose of God cannot be separated from God raising up men to fulfil it. Nor can the raising up—that issue we call authority—be separated from the anointing, or the wherewithal, the means by which it is to be done. Godly work has nothing to do with human ingenuity or devices.
Would you like to see this in the life of David? There is a portion that you have probably been in so many times that you know it better than I do, but I would like for you to turn with me this morning to 1 Chronicles 13.
If you have a Scofield Bible, you have a caption at the top which says, “Doing a Right Thing in the Wrong Way.”
David has been brought into the place where, as the leader of his people, he has one tremendous desire—and it is a good desire. I think he looks out among all the people in their scattered condition, and he realizes there must be something of a unifying factor.
That is what we are working toward this week. We said, you remember, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their founding place, had a unique position to fulfil. We spoke of Moses as the deliverer; Joshua as the captain of possession; the period of the judges; and Samuel as the voice of the Lord, the seer. Now we are focusing on the unique thing that God was doing through David: the unifier.
Taking a motley crowd of tribes and people, he is going to bring them to the place where there will be something to build in the building. Here is David, with a deep inward sense that there must be a unifying factor. He has been longing for something, and finally he goes about to do a thing that is very good. He is in a religious program, I know—going to do something for God.
And David consulted with the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and with every leader.
And David said unto all the assembly of Israel, “If it seem good unto you, and if it be of the Lord our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and Levites that are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves unto us:
And let us bring again the ark of our God to us; for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul.”—1 Chronicles 13:1-3
I like this democratic spirit: counseling with all the men, finding out just what we should do, and then being sure, of course, concerned that the Lord will be with us in it. The congregation all voted. Have you ever been in this kind of a situation? “The whole assembly said that they would do so; for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.”
Now, you folks from Britain and other places cannot appreciate our democracy in America. I am a thoroughgoing American, but I know that it has its limitations. I know God’s order. Sometimes people wrinkle their brow and raise their eyelid when I speak this way, but I realize God’s order of government and all that it involves.
As we were saying the other day, Israel was to be a theocracy: God ruling. Here you have the leader of the people not really fulfilling the position that he should be fulfilling.
He needed to be established. I said the other day, and I think it needs to be clarified: do not wait when we speak of moving into the place or position. God is working in our inner being. He is bringing about experience, and out of it there comes a position each time. But do not sit back and say, “Well, I am not prepared.”
If there is one tendency of the male flesh, it is the tendency, when men are not in the Spirit, to become passive. They tend toward passivity. I need to be careful, because while we have been speaking of God raising and bringing an individual into the position that He intends, you do not need to get your eye on the position, but start with letting God bring you into this position, and this position, and this position.
God means men to be heads of the whole—men who know the anointing and sense within the local function of their fellowship how to step in and take the place. Not grasping, not usurping, but taking the God-ordained place.
The man who does not sense this always crawls into passivity. He will follow temperament, and by nature become passive. I say this: a man out of place always crawls in the doghouse, and a woman out of place always crawls in the driver’s seat.
It is an invariable thing. We get hold of each other’s verses, you know, in the Bible. How many wives love to quote, “Husbands, love your wives”? But that is to the husband. Why do you not let him have that verse? You have a verse, and you know what it is. Let him have his, and you take yours. You see what I mean.
This is a peculiar arrangement. Oh, how often, because men become so passive, women become so—well, it is the expedient in the situation we were talking about yesterday. It seems sometimes that the Lord raises up, or must use, a woman for the occasion. Now, do not get this wrong. This is not His highest purpose; it is not the furthest thing He is after. But right in this situation, all He can do is use a woman.
You still love me, do you not? I believe many situations arise not because women are so much out of order, as because men refuse to take the order and place that are theirs. But it is a two-way street.
So here we have David. There is something in this that gives you the sense that the order is not quite right. While it is a very wonderful thing to counsel and to go to others, I believe it is good. But I think it should be something we are careful about, because, as we will see in this case, while the thing seemed right in the eyes of all the people, David, you are on the wrong ground.
So he has the one-hundred-percent vote.
And David gathered all Israel together from the Shihor of Egypt even unto the entrance of Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.
And David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, the Lord that dwelleth between the cherubim, that is called by the Name.—1 Chronicles 13:5-6
I tell you, I think they were thrilled. I believe there was great expectation in this. David no doubt had a deep, intense desire within to bring this ark into the midst of the people, that there would be a restoration of centrality, a unifying factor, and a restoration of worship. Great anticipation—and it was a good desire.
So, with great anticipation, they go about to do the thing for God. Well, let us see how they do it. Verse 7:
And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab; and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart.
And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets.—1 Chronicles 13:7-8
I tell you, the things of the Lord are not to be done in a shabby way. After all, this is a precious thing, and if we do anything, we want to have the very best. So they built a new cart, bringing it out of the house of Abinadab. Uzza, a very prized man, was selected to drive the cart.
Here are all the spectators—David and all Israel behind. Here they go, playing before God. This was not just a natural little thing; it had great religious ceremony, psalms, and so forth, with all their might, with singing, harps, timbrels, cymbals, and trumpets. Can you see the procession? Something is going to be done for God.
And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and He smote him, because he put forth his hand to the ark; and there he died before God.—1 Chronicles 13:9-10
Oh, we have a crisis—an unforeseen thing coming in. Where did that stone in the way come from? I never saw it. Why, things were moving so smoothly, and suddenly a crisis. The new cart breaks down; the ark is resting there, and it must not touch the ground.
What will you do in an emergency? The expedient thing. When the oxen stumble, Uzza puts forth his hand. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and He smote him because he put his hand to the ark. There he died before God.
And David was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzza; wherefore that place is called Perez-uzza unto this day.
And David was afraid of God that day, saying, “How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?”
So David brought not the ark home to himself to the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
And the ark of God remained with the family of Obed-edom in his house three months: and the Lord blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that he had.—1 Chronicles 13:11-14
I wonder if you can look with me this morning through the religious scene today and see the highways and byways scattered with people who have zeal and a desire to do something for God—starting a program, getting something going. Yet, strangely, in the very moment when it looks as though the thing is going to succeed and we are going to see something for God, something happens.
I remember—this must be twelve, maybe fifteen, years ago—I was in Oregon ministering. A dear man and his wife came one morning and asked if I would come home after the morning service and have lunch with them. I noticed something of a shadow over their expression, their countenance.
As we got through eating that noon, the wife finally turned to her husband and said, “Sweetheart, why do you not just share what we have been through with Brother Trumbull?”
They told me a story I will never forget. Some eight or ten years prior to that, the Lord had moved through that particular valley. Any number of men and women, farmers in the community, had been laid hold of by the Lord. They began to meet in their homes, have fellowship, and study together.
Out of it grew a tremendous desire to have outreach and to be effective for God. In the course of the story, they told how they had all sold their farms—very, very successful farmers—and pooled all their funds. They went out, I believe to Arizona or New Mexico, and bought an abandoned ghost town to start a mission for the Indians of that area.
Oh, how they went into detail. I was quite enthralled as I heard the story. It was a tremendous sum of money, and with great delight and desire they went out to evangelize and do something for forgotten people in that part of our own country.
They had their own bakery, their own laundry, their own—well, they had a complete city. Somebody had abandoned it, and they bought it.
Well, to shorten the story, he said, “You know, we had not been there too long before we discovered that we were not as unified as we thought. We began to quarrel, and problems came in among us. One by one, the families moved out and left.”
Here he caught himself, and he said, “We held out till the last. We were the last family to leave. You can buy a ghost town now.”
There they sat, with a shadow over their countenance and a heaviness, as if—and I have seen it so many times in the lives of people—they desired to do something for God. They looked at me, and these were his words: “Brother, I am almost afraid to trust, or believe, or to do anything anymore. We were let down. We realized there were lots of things that we did not know.”
May I say this morning, very kindly, the religious scene—the highways and byways—is crowded with this. Oh, they would never articulate it in words, but hidden deep in the bosom there is something of the letdown, the struggle, and the confusion. They would not say, “Lord, You let us down,” but faith seems to be gone.
I have said so often that it is not that we need more workers, or that we need to challenge more people. We need to get some of them out of the ditches along the highways and byways.
I think I have been a part of that scene. I look back through the years at all the ambitious drives and things we started. Some of you have read some of the journals and things. I remember thirteen or fourteen years ago how we built a lovely boot camp to train young people—thirteen buildings.
We had lots of spiritual insight, but we lacked just that thing of priority that we are going to get to. It is quite a thing when you have enthused quite a parade of people and suddenly, one day, you get a telegram that the whole thing has gone up in smoke. You come back, and there you stand looking at all the ashes of several years of work.
Well, I thank God that He is able to say in those moments, “Son, your building is not to be with hay and stubble. It is not to be the things that you can trumpet off in glory from right here. There must be something of eternal content, something of eternal quality that is hidden. That is the building there must be.”
I do not want to delve into all these personal things, but this particular portion came unfolded to me at an hour of crisis some years ago, and I can never get away from it.
We had been working with a certain mission that was very eager to get missionaries out to the field, as though the need constituted a call. I knew there was a need for qualifying and getting people prepared. We did not send them off to Bible school, but put them in a boot camp so that we would not qualify them after the flesh. We put them in the most difficult, grinding, grueling circumstances, where everything that needed to be exposed would be exposed. We picked a desert in California to do it.
We were fellowshipping and helping train, and bought a big DC-6 plane, surplus from the government after the war, to get them down to the field faster. A brand-new cart.
I will never forget. I think we had taken four or five plane loads down. This particular time, I happened to be at boot camp. We loaded a group of twenty-one missionaries, with their children and baggage, and started up the coast from California to Eugene, Portland, and so on, having rallies along the way before they took off for Miami.
I was really tempted. I had never been in South America. Oh, how I would have liked to have gone along. Natural desire—you do not blame me. But I remember the Lord, with such clarity, saying, “No, no, no.”
We said goodbye, I believe, at Spokane, and I went on to a conference in South Dakota. They went through Minneapolis and a couple of other places, then took off for Miami. I had learned to love that group. We had been together. They were some of the most precious people I have ever known, with top pilots who had flown in the Berlin Airlift.
I had not been in that conference for a week when I got a long-distance call from the head of the mission. At the other end of the line, he was paying for the call. “That plane you were on, and all those missionaries, have gone into a mountain down in South America.”
He said, “Would you go and take some of my conferences and meetings when you get through? I am going to fly down and see if we cannot get some of the bodies and some of the things back.”
So close to being on it. That would not be so bad, but I had fellowshipped with those people. I had lived with them for weeks and weeks. I tell you, when it comes to people with zeal, with some desire to do something for God—to do it for God—
That morning, I will never forget, I hid away for the day. I guess you learn the principle after a while of saying, “Lord, Your will.” But you have to be honest: there is always a big “why” that comes up. Here were the most dedicated people I knew. Why did that plane go into the mountain?
I will never forget that afternoon. There was quite a stillness over the whole camp. It was not a big group, but that afternoon my father-in-law, who had walked with God for years, knew that he had to have a word. I am sure God gave it.
As we went to the service and sat down, he said, “I want you to turn to 1 Chronicles 13.” He took us through this portion, and God began to answer some things He had tried to tell me for some years, but I never would listen to Him, because he did not have that zip and zoom, you know. This was so slow.
I could not question his dedication or his zeal, but he did not move fast enough. Oh, I thank God for men through the years who have been patient. They wait and say, “Well, son, here is the seed. I will wait for it to take root, and someday you will see.”
But I got hold of it, and it has been a tremendous help and an answer. I look back now and realize how much of the religious world today moves on expediency. We see the thing that is good, something we want to do. Nothing was wrong with bringing the ark, was there? No. But there were some things wrong. We are going to see it.
Fortunately, the story does not stop with 1 Chronicles 13. We go over to 1 Chronicles 15, and we begin to get hold of what was actually wrong, or what was involved.
In this period in between, I think we do well to remember: instead of effectiveness, instead of realizing or achieving the purpose of getting the ark home, it was disaster. The timing and placing were wrong. The order was wrong. His priority was wrong, and we are going to see why the priority was wrong.
And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent.
—1 Chronicles 15:1
I would like to ask you a question. David, back in 1 Chronicles 13, when you were so ready to get the ark into the city, where were you going to put it? “Put it?” Well, let us just get it there. We will cross that bridge later. Just get it here first.
We begin to discover already that something is out of order. I believe that David had this sense: “Lord, what went wrong? Why?”
We read two things in 1 Chronicles 14, verses 10 and 14. They apply to something else, but they are the key to what I am after: “And David inquired of God.” Then, “Therefore David inquired again of God.” In this circumstance, God was able to speak to him.
Then David said, “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto Him for ever.”
—1 Chronicles 15:2
I ask the question again. David, surely you should have known this. If you had been in continuity, if you had gone back and realized what God had said previously, that none but the Levites should carry the ark—those duly set apart and anointed—where did you get the idea of a new cart? Where did that come from?
Well, you know how, when the Philistines had looked upon the ark and knew that it was something very precious to Israel, they thought, “If we could just get that ark away from them and get it in our midst, then we would be blessed. We would have the same prospect.” Oh, how they wanted to get the ark, and they did get it in their midst in a battle, only to discover that the blessing turned out to be a curse.
That is a principle you can follow. If you just want the blessing, it will turn out in your hand to work something else. They had to get rid of this thing that did not happen to be the blessing they thought it was going to be.
They consulted with some of their prophets, and they said, “Build a new cart and hitch cows that have never been used, and let their God lead them back to their country. Get it out.” They had to do that because they did not have any Levites. It was necessary for them to use a new cart.
I do not know, but I have reason to believe that here is David going out to take the method of the Philistines, to bring it in, harness it, and use it. I do not need to make any applications today. I think we can look all around us.
We might all be amazed how many new carts are being used to do the thing for the Lord, for God. But those are the times God puts forth a breach and stops the thing in mid-track. In the highways and byways, people are still left with this sort of disillusionment: “What went wrong?”
So we are getting a key now: none but the Levites.
And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the Lord unto its place, which he had prepared for it.
—1 Chronicles 15:3
David assembled the children of Aaron, and so on. Then David called for Zadok and the Levites and said:
Ye are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, unto the place that I have prepared for it.
For because ye bare it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not according to the ordinance.—1 Chronicles 15:12-13
“We sought Him not after the due order.” We have simply been saying that if the due order had been followed, they would have had a place prepared, their timing would have been right, and it would have brought about the realization—the effectiveness—of the thing they were after.
But we ask, why did David fail? Why did he not know the due order? He got his priority mixed up. Priority failed.
What was the priority? We know whom they counseled with, but I bring it back simply to this: here is our lovely olive tree again, deep within, and here is our branch. We are going to get fruit out here eventually, but here is the olive tree.
I think God has something to say to my own heart and soul in many ways. Oh, in the midst of anxiety to get things done for God, we confuse the apparent needs with the real need. The thing that seems apparent is not necessarily the real need.
I believe only God can really bring you into the real priority. I cannot organize my day, dear Lord—one, two, three, four, five—except as I do it in my own mind before the Lord and stay so very adjustable in it.
Otherwise, you will be in complete frustration and confusion when the Lord slips in something else that works out the whole thing another way. But priority only comes by abiding—my spirit in union with His Spirit. God alone knows the priority.
I believe this is where David’s failure came. If he had been sensitive, if the flow had been there, he would have heard the Lord say, “David, first of all, you must make a place.”
It brings us back to the principle we quote so often: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” This is simple. It does not say anything you do not know. But it ought to try and shut us up to the fact of the due order.
I think in so many religious circles today, while it is wonderful for God’s children to have more and more release, what we really need is more and more restriction in some way—more and more really being shut up and brought into the sense of order.
These things are good, but I must know Your priority. I must know Your priority. I have to confess to you, this is the war I go through. You get to the place pretty soon where you do not even get to make the list. Before you ever wake up, they are beating on the door, making the whole schedule for the day.
The mail comes and it schedules your day. The phone rings and it schedules your day. Oh, if God can cut off the abundance of these things that seem so good and so necessary, and bring us into an awareness that He alone governs the priority.
This brings the order, the proper order. I look at my lovely Lord, the greater David, looking out upon all the needs that must have existed in His day.
I used to be bothered with Him. A Man who could heal as He could, a Man who had the answer to all their needs—I almost condemned Him if He ever went to sleep. That is because we do the whole thing of religious activity out of natural reasoning. We choose the priority.
I used to get into a service, a conference, a place like this. As I looked out over an audience, I would see young people, sometimes unsaved people, and folk at various levels of need. It would begin to be a pull. “Now, I believe I ought to teach an evangelistic message tonight. Maybe I ought to preach on this to help this group.” You begin to allow these things to pull and determine your priorities and create the order.
It is a very, very difficult thing. But I tell you—and I had not learned it, but I think I am learning—it is something quite wonderful to realize that there is a strange and wonderful authority that goes along with the real anointing.
The anointing of the Lord enables one to fill the position that God wants. You have to almost seem totally oblivious of whether the natural situation looks like the needs, problems, desires, or things to fulfil, unless the flow comes from the olive tree.
The amazing thing about it is this: when it seems that nobody is being directly ministered to at the point of their need, the Holy Spirit takes the most peculiar illustration that you intended for the most advanced thing. Some little fellow who is not saved comes and says, “It was just for me.”
Lord, I do not know how, but I know Your priorities can take every level of truth and fit them and make them applicable. It is not the apparent need that we should be preoccupied with. If we do, we will get our priority wrong.
He alone governs it. The anointing alone—it is a very sovereign thing that shuts us up. God has to do more restricting, more constraining, and more holding with me. Yet the same anointing releases. Is that not wonderful? It does both things.
So we read verse 13 again:
For because ye bare it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not according to the ordinance.
So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel.
And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord.—1 Chronicles 15:13-15
David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be singers, with instruments of music, psalteries, harps, and cymbals, sounding by lifting up the voice with joy. Here you have the whole procession.
So David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obed-edom with joy.
And it came to pass, when God helped the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that they offered seven bullocks and seven rams.
And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: and David had upon him an ephod of linen.
Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps.—1 Chronicles 15:25-28
Here is great realization. The priority was right. God said this. The order, the time and place, something of an effectiveness—I do not know; forgive my childishness, but I like to think of what always comes as the fruit on this tree when the particular branch is allowed the real flow out of a real abiding sense of being one.
This whole thing works pretty fast. Out here, there is one thing, and it is a natural law: the thing that always comes is the fruit of effectiveness, or efficiency—the outflow of this. I think we see it here. It is a very lovely thing: praise.
You look at that car and it hums with that beautiful hum that only a mechanic can hear. You say, “My, you have that well tuned.” Go to the life in whom the Spirit of God is working, and there is that slow, steady outflow of effectiveness. You cannot help but say, “Lord, You have done it right.”
We want the by-product without what brings it about, do you think? It only comes this way.
What a difference the procession was this time. Instead of a funeral procession—no wonder so many religious things end in the graveyard, brother. We need it close today.
We have a lot of things to bury, a lot of mishaps. Lots of times the cart stumbles, and it is a good thing the cemetery is as close as it is to the church—I mean, the building, the building.
There is something else I must say in closing. It would seem that, with such a triumphant note of fulfilment and realization, everybody would be happy. Everyone would be rejoicing. Here is the cross implied.
The principle right here is always true: just as soon as there is something of the fruit that comes out of real anointing for God, the enemy will be right there, and the cross is working.
No sooner has the Lord Jesus come from Jordan, anointed and moving into something that would be realized for God, than the devil steps right in and takes Him into the wilderness. Right there.
I think we had best be prepared. That which really is in the line of purpose with God, that which constitutes being raised up and anointed, and finally beginning to move into that which will bring fruit—there will be the counterattack.
And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart.
—1 Chronicles 15:29
I do not know what to do with some things. They leave me with conclusions that sometimes I wonder about. But I am rather sure that the natural will always hate that which is truly the fruit of the anointing.
This does not give us license to start a dancing party now. But if there comes something that stumbles the natural, I want to stand back and somehow be so aligned with David that I can rejoice in his dancing.
I do not know. This is kind of a sifting thing. There is something here. “David, that is not of a sound mind. Imagine the king out there!” There are lots of things that cross up the natural. God has His way.
Tomorrow we go on into what is really involved in the priority. I just want to say in closing this morning: you may get your eyes on what you think are the needs in your home, the circumstances in your fellowship, or wherever it is.
God wants to shut us up to Himself. He will not show us merely what to do and then let us go back to bring in the ark. I have tried it. I have sat down disillusioned so many times when I had a funeral on my hands instead of a glorious procession.
Is there someone who has been disillusioned, who has felt as though you have been let down? Oh, I trust that God will build a foundation, that we can move with a new confidence: “Lord, in Your ways, in Your ways, You bring about effectiveness.” Do you believe it?
Lord, we are shut up to the fact this morning that all the natural laws that we know, all the philosophy, all the principles we know, fall short right at this point. They just lack You as the root of it, the source of it, the supply, the sufficiency. Everything comes right back to this.
We, Lord, seem supremely sensitive and aware of the fact that there are some real priority issues here. This conference—is this just another gathering to encourage and strengthen Your people, or are there some priorities involved? The real work that You ordained, the time and the place.
We do pray that Thou wilt hold us in Thy hand. Let us not manufacture or bring upon ourselves anything that is not really wholly of Thee—any burdens, heaviness, or anything else. But just hold us in that lovely flow where we sense that which is divine.
Oh, thank You, Lord, for the divine priority, for the divine order—the due order—the divine placing, the divine timing, the divine effectiveness, and the fruit that comes today out of it all. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.